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Monday, 24 December 2012

People Who Volunteer Live Longer, Study Suggests.

5th and Final Point Of The Series ...........

People
who volunteer have happier life than who don’t.

People who volunteer for selfless reasons, such as helping others,
live longer than those who don't lend a helping hand, a new study shows.
However, those who volunteer for more self-centered reasons do not reap the
same life-extending benefits.

"This could mean thatpeople who
volunteer with other people as their main
motivation may be buffered from potential stressors associated with
volunteering, such as time constraints and lack of pay," study researcher
Sara Konrath of the University of Michigan said in a statement.

(Past research suggested another benefit for selfless volunteers —
a date. Apparentlywomen rate such
altruismhigh on their
list of desirable traits in a mate.)

In 2004, the participants reported how often they had volunteered
within the past 10 years. They also explained their reasons for volunteering,
or, in the cases of those who had not volunteered but were planning to,
the reasons they would.

Some of the participants' motives weremore oriented
toward others, such as "I feel it is important to help
others" or "Volunteering is an important activity to the people I
know best." Other respondents, however, had more self-oriented reasons for
volunteering, such as "Volunteering is a good escape from my own
troubles," or "Volunteering makes me feel better about myself."

Researchers then compared the participants' responses with
physical health information that had mostly been collected in 1992. The
researchers also considered the respondents' socioeconomic status, mental
health, social support, marital status and health risk factors, including
smoking, body mass index and alcohol use.

The findings showed that those who volunteered for morealtruistic reasons had lower mortality rates as of 2008 than people who did
not volunteer. Of the 2,384 non-volunteers, 4.3 percent were deceased four
years later, compared with 1.6 percent of altruistic volunteers who had died.

However, people who said they volunteered for their own personal
satisfaction had nearly the same mortality rate (4 percent) as people who did
not volunteer at all.

"It is reasonable for people to volunteer in part because of
benefits to the self; however, our research implies that, ironically, should
these benefits to the self become the main motive for volunteering, they may
not see those benefits," said study researcher Andrea Fuhrel-Forbis, also
of the University of Michigan.

We are calling all the people who wants to volunteer either by virtual or being present there in India can contact E:communications@heeals.org " As We Believe Volunteering Can Make Difference in Poeple's Lives "